THE arrival of the world's most advanced mail handling machines in Bolton will mean a better mail service for businesses. Royal Mail has just installed two £1.25million Integrated Mail Processors (IMPs) at its Farnworth mail centre which cut total sorting time from 90 minutes to two minutes. "It will speed the whole system up," said a spokeswoman for Royal Mail.

"It's going to mean a better service and more mail getting there the day after posting."

She explained that at the moment, 90 per cent of First Class letters get delivered next day. The aim is to increase that percentage to around 94 per cent.

The £200million IMP Project is the biggest single investment in Royal Mail's history. The machines can sort mail from scratch ready for letterbox delivery, and can even read hand-written addresses.

Frank Hogan, Area Operations Manager for Royal Mail in Bolton, said: "Mail volumes continue to grow apace.

"Our daily postbag here in Bolton is now almost half a million items and we expect this to increase by at least 20 per cent over the next five years.

"IMPs represent a giant step forward in mail processing and I am proud that Bolton is among the country's key mail centres chosen to benefit from the new technology."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.